Woody Allen opens up about controversial relationship with wife Soon-Yi in new memoir

In the book, which was released on March 23, the film director went into detail about the couple's relationship, which reportedly began in 1991 while he was in a relationship with Soon-Yi's adopted mother, actress Mia Farrow.

"At the very early stages of our new relationship, when lust reigns supreme… we couldn't keep our hands off each other," he wrote in his book of Soon-Yi, who is 35 years his junior. Farrow and then-husband, Andre Previn, had adopted Soon-Yi from an orphanage in Korea in 1975 when she was just five years old.

Woody Allen and Soon-Yi reportedly began their relationship in 1991. (Getty)

Allen, 84, insisted that when he began a romance with Soon-Yi, he and Farrow were already estranged. Allen then recalled the moment Farrow learnt of the affair after unearthing erotic photographs of Soon-Yi at his apartment. Allen and Farrow, 75, soon ended their 12-year partnership in 1992.

"Of course I understand her shock, her dismay, her rage, everything," he admitted in the book. "It was the correct reaction."

Still, Allen has no regrets over his affair with Soon-Yi, who was only 21 at the time.

"Sometimes, when the going got rough and I was maligned everywhere, I was asked if I had known the outcome, do I ever wish I never took up with Soon-Yi? I always answered I'd do it again in a heartbeat," he wrote.

In 2018, Soon-Yi broke her decades-long silence on Allen in an interview with New York magazine, explaining why their relationship has survived all these years.

"I wasn't the one who went after Woody — where would I get the nerve? He pursued me," she told the publication. "That's why the relationship has worked: I felt valued. It's quite flattering for me. He's usually a meek person, and he took a big leap."